


Spring Break

by pylades



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-03
Updated: 2015-05-03
Packaged: 2018-03-28 20:34:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3868912
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pylades/pseuds/pylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It'll be their last chance to be kids and the first to be adults.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Spring Break

Katherine has three email accounts.

There’s her school account (k.pulitzer@temple.edu, an account which she expressly forbids friends and family to use), her Gmail account meant for friends and the occasional goodreads update (plumbone@gmail.com - don’t judge her, she was thirteen when she came up with that moniker).

AND the third and final account, created for one very specific reason (that being the tenuous thread which held Katherine’s sanity to her), only had two contacts.

Lucille Katherine Plumber.

Joseph Pulitzer.

Davey, her favorite Information Sciences major, constantly shook his head at her email juggling. She could always create filters if she didn’t want to read her parents’ passive aggressive emails, sending them into a folder where she could look when she felt strong enough to do it without screaming. It isn’t that she doesn’t know how to create filters (and she feels his insinuation is based in sexist drivel and expected better, David), but she knows she won’t resist the temptation to read them.

So all of her devices are set so that she has to push-to-retrieve any messages sent to klp92@hotmail.com.

And if she typically waits to do this until after she and Sarah have opened their Saturday night bottle of cheap Trader Joe’s wine, well … so be it.

There’s a method to avoiding madness, Katherine knows. And it works well for her, until she’s betrayed.

She doesn’t know who the culprit is. But when her iPhone chirps an email alert as she’s making a pot of ramen and Katherine sees her mother’s name in the email header, she knows that something terrible has happened.

It’s Lucy’s typical email - a few lines about work, an off-the-cuff snark about her ex-husband, a recap of the past week’s episode of Scandal (Katherine doesn’t watch it, but her mom won’t give up hope that she’ll convert her daughter into a Shonda fangirl), and then -

“I’m depositing some money into your account on one condition, sweetheart. It’s your senior year and I want you to actually do something fun. No internships, no catching up on work for the rest of the semester. Travel. You have my permission to live a little. Or a lot. (Ugh, she used a winky face and a kissy lip emoticon there which Katherine knew was meant to insinuate something untoward.) Love, Mom.”

She closed the email and opened her bank account’s app, goggling at her updated balance.

Seriously, her mother gave her $2,000 to blow on a spring break trip.

SERIOUSLY.

Her mother who fought her dad tooth and nail about every expense since Katherine got braces at 12.

Her email chirped again and Katherine sighed. Her mom, again.

“If you try to spend it on books or rent, you will be in so much trouble. Love Mommy.”

Of course. Rent was Joe’s responsibility, books were Katherine’s.

Fun, though, fun had Lucy’s name all over it.

She’d rolled her eyes so often at her mother’s hijinks that sometimes Katherine worried that she’d cause herself irreparable damage.

Still, she rolled her eyes. And as she did, Katherine caught sight of the framed watercolor that hung beside her kitchen window. The rich pinks and purples of the Santa Fe skyline, it had been Jack’s Christmas gift to her.

Katherine had traveled often in her twenty-three years, with her parents while they were still together, and with Joe and Lucy separately. But Jack’s only travel had been from Brooklyn to Philadelphia for art school.

He loved both cities, but confessed to her that his dream was to see that skyline for himself.

Jack had a car.

Katherine had $2,000.

And they both had 7 days of spring break ahead of them.

The last spring break of their undergraduate lives.

She turns the stove off, ramen forgotten, and begins planning.

____________________

It takes some convincing to bring Jack on board with her plan. Money has always been something of an issue between them - Katherine has it (a lot of it) and Jack doesn’t. He’s proud (and stubborn), but when Katherine reminds him that it’s a gift from her mother and it comes with the guarantee of driving her father insane, Jack agrees with her.

Three of the four times that Jack has spent time with Joe Pulitzer, they almost ended up brawling. The two have nothing in common, from politics to religion to the role of media in society. They both love Katherine, but that’s not nearly enough to make the two get along. She can’t wait for the graduation party that her mother’s been planning …

When words fail, Katherine curls up against him on the couch and talks to him about the cheesy tourist destinations that she’s googled and iTunes playlists for the long drive. If she strokes her hand through his hair while she does it … well, she’s going to use every weapon in her arsenal, thank you very much.

It’ll be a last chance to be kids and also a first chance to be adults. Jack’s bunked out on her couch before and they’ve traveled with David and Sarah and other friends, but the two of them … just the two of them … is going to be new.

____________________

The next morning they pack Jack’s car with snacks and suitcases and sleeping bags, grabbing coffee as they fill the gas tank.

The trip isn’t perfect by any means. Spring means road construction in Pennsylvania (to be honest, every season means road construction in Pennsylvania) and long hours in barely-moving traffic tests their nerves. They argue and apologize, Jack reaching over to knit their fingers together, squeezing her hand gently. It’s tempting to stop, especially once they make it to St. Louis and points further west than even Katherine has traveled, but they’ve agreed to hit the sights on the trip back. They’ll only stop to refill gas or to use a rest stop or when they need a break from driving. Fourteen hours in, they stop in a little town and unroll their sleeping bags in the back of the jeep.

It’s crowded and they both have to shift and fold their legs at strange angles (especially Jack, the taller of the two), but they laugh and finally fall asleep. The next morning they’re stiff and Katherine isn’t fond of bolting for the rest stop bathroom with a head of hair resembling a bird’s nest, but she acknowledges that there are definitely worse ways to fall asleep than cuddled in Jack Kelly’s arms.

(The pain in her hip, though, would beg to differ.)

She doesn’t know how they time the rest of their trip so well, but with a grocery stop and a few pee breaks, they make it into Santa Fe an hour before sunset. While at a red light, Katherine reaches for the Garmin and searches for the pre-programmed location she set earlier.

They’ll be back-tracking to head to their hotel later, but it’s worth it to make this trip. She wants this to be Jack’s first memory of Santa Fe, not the Econo Lodge registration desk.

And, God, it’s worth it. The sun is starting to set as they make their way up NM 475. When she pulls off in the Overlook’s parking area, they jump out of the car with a refreshed sense of purpose (and, surprisingly, without feeling the aches of the long drive).

Jack’s sketchbook and art kit are still in the trunk, Katherine’s phone is plugged into the charger, but they have plenty of time for drawing and Instagram later. For now, she’s happy to lean against him and marvel at the sky.


End file.
